Posted
by
kdawson
on Monday November 30, 2009 @07:44PM
from the so-they-say dept.

superglaze and several other readers noted a piece up on ZDNet.co.uk reporting that last summer a pub in the UK was fined £8,000 after a customer downloaded copyrighted material on its Wi-Fi connection. According to the article, whose source was the Wi-Fi hotspot provider, it was a civil action and the pub was not identified because its owner had not given permission to release the details. Techdirt is skeptical as to whether or not the reported fine happened, given the sketchiness surrounding the details. If true, the ruling seems baffling to UK legal experts, according to ZDNet: "Internet law professor Lilian Edwards, of Sheffield Law School, told ZDNet that companies that operate a public Wi-Fi hotspot should 'not be responsible in theory' for users' illegal downloads under 'existing substantive copyright law.'" In a follow-up article, Prof. Edwards cautions that such hotspot operators should "watch out for the pile of copyright infringement warnings coming your way."

This is scarily along the lines of the iiNet (popular Australian ISP) versus AFACT (Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft) case that just finished in the courts a few days ago. We're all waiting for the Judge's ruling next year as it could set a huge precedent.

It'd be pretty easy for somebody with some letterhead and a paralegal's knowledge of the terminology to just do a snailmail spam campaign against a broad swath of demographically suitable addresses.

If the target calls their lawyer, or refuses to cave, just back off, and rake it in from all the poor saps who freak out and cave when they get a nasty letter from "Somebody, Somebody, and Somebody-Else, LLC, Solicitors, representing Big Scary Corporation, concerning irrefutable evidence of your being an evil pirate" and urging them to make a modest cash "settlement" rather than face court.